Customer Reviews

Moon Thailand (Moon Handbooks)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My friend and I used this book as our sole source of information for our 1 month trip to Thailand. It was priceless! Great insights into places to see, stay and eat from Bangkok, Chang Mai, to the beaches and really off the beaten path towns and villages. The food the author suggested was always delicious (and sometimes spicey!!) The train conductor even used our book to show some British travelers where to go in northern Thailand.

I am a great fan of Moon Handbooks and eagerly awaited this one. It was a huge disappointment. Actually there are only 517 pages not the 600 noted above. Perhaps the publishers left out the meat of the book in the missing pages. The accomodation and food sections are much too brief. Important towns such as Nong Khai near Laos are all but ignored except in the border crossing information, which also has incorrect listings. Mukdahan with another important crossing into Laos doesn't even get a mention, nor does the beautiful mountain village of Nan. I can usually find redeeming features in even a marginal guide book but it has been rough going here. Give it a pass.

Like some of the other books in the Moon series, this one is very thorough and helpful. I checked other series, and this one is up to date, and has a good spectrum of views, from back-packing to high-end vacations. Like the Belize
book from Moon, this was very useful for the trip I made to Thailand this year.

This book is a waste of your money. It is poorly organized, restaurants listed don't have pricing which is critical in Thailand and they are impossible to find. Explainations of all topics are vague and lack details. Transportation to and from aiports and hotels is barely addressed and leaves you on your own every time. This book does not touch on any of the scams in Thailand or the critical culture differences that really affect westerners in Thailand. It seems to me to be written from a point of view of someone who has never really traveled and necessary details are left out.

I felt this guide book was extremely informative and helpful during my trip through Thailand. My wife and I travel a fair amount for pleasure each year and this is the best book either of us have ever used. The recomendations for lodging and meals were excellent. The outstanding cuisine in Thailand is one of the reasons for our trip and this book was invaluable in helping us search out the best restaurants.

This book has some interesting and different ideas from Lonely Planet and Rough Guide and does not seem geared specifically to the backpacker group. That being said, at times it seems more like a travelogue rather than a guidebook and therefore the coverage on some locations is very sparse.

One of the all time BEST guides on Thailand is the superbly researched and presented "Thailand Handbook" by Carl Parkes (which won the Lowell Thomas Gold Award). I highly recommend it, for all sorts of Thai travel, history, food, culture, and people details. It won't have the latest lodging prices, but as a fantastic read and directive to accompany any trip, any year, any decade, to Thailand, I strongly recommend it!